Onlife

Onlife #34

Finally, Jacobs will have control of the "billboard marketing system" that MindArk is planning on implementing into the game. Now, I'm not too clear on what this means. Will it be something along of the lines of what Anarchy Online does? Or will it be geared less towards the advertising of real products, and more towards stuff Entropia-related? I know what you're thinking, but I'm not ready to write off the latter; if you play WoW, and you had a product/service/whatever to sell, don't you think it would be crazy effective to have it plastered on a huge billboard smack in front of the auction house in Ironforge? Chances are your Rugged Leathers and Enchanted Thorium Bars will sell at least little bit faster.

In any case, Jacobs seems to have a very plum deal on paper. I won't pretend like I'm an expert on Project Entropia's community, but I'm just wondering: is there a healthy-enough playerbase there to support his business? And if there is, what can Jacobs do to ensure that his space station will be the destination of choice for those-about-to-grind? Of course, I'm not na¿ve enough to think that MindArk won't help him any. He's party to what is probably the developer's boldest move ever, and as such, they probably as big a stake as he does in "Neverdieland's" success. But I ask again -- are there enough people playing, and willing to spend their well-earned cash on Jacobs' land?

Guys with cash get all the chicks, right? You better make friends with Neverdie...

Regardless, games like Project Entropia and people like Jacobs are giving us a glimpse into what the future holds for these kinds of games. The market is going to expand, and that much is a given. It's just a matter of when, and whether or not we'll recognize it once it reaches that level. Personally, I'm of the mind that games like WoW and EverQuest II represent the farthest that MMOs in their current form are going to go. Not that I'm saying we won't see any games that resemble them, from a design/accessibility standpoint. We're gonna see a ton. But the next breakout hits, I'm predicting, will feel like something entirely different.

Whether or not these games will be intrinsically tied to real-world currency is up to debate, but don't think for a second that every major MMO publisher you can think of isn't hard at work trying to concoct ways to make you pay them more money. If there were a legit way to actually make money during your playtime, wouldn't you jump on it? God knows many of us play these games a whole lot anyway.